No surprise: September wetter than normal

September ended and October began cool but with some sun. Snow could be seen in the mountains. Photo by Casey Kelly.

Twenty-seven of 30 days in September were rainy in the capital city, according to the National Weather Service.

Just over 11-inches of rain fell, more than 2.38 inches above normal September rainfall of 8.6 inches.

Normally September and October are Juneau’s rainiest months, but this year the nearly constant rain began in May.

Take heart, says forecaster Rick Fritsch, it was actually rainier in British Columbia.

“With as cool as our summer has been, the jet stream never really got as far down to the south as it normally should go. As a consequence a lot of those storms that are being driven or steered by the jet stream were being steered into the west coast of North America — something halfway between the typical winter locations and the summer locations. So we had it bad certainly, but British Columbia got a soaking even worse than we did this summer,” he says.

Average temperature in Juneau was .04 degrees below normal.

As for the last day of the month, the first frost of the season hit in several parts of the Mendenhall Valley. Even at Juneau International Airport, the official climatology site for the borough, the overnight low dipped to 38 degrees.

New snow also fell in the mountains, even a few flakes at the top of Eaglecrest.

If the cool, wet summer and early autumn are a predictor of winter, it could be another good snow year. But Fritsch says an El Nino is forecast this winter.

“The El Nino is when the surface of the sea water right around the equator on the west coast of South America is the tongue of warmer than normal water that extends to the west along the equator,” he explains. “And then through lots of interactions between the oceanography and meteorology, what that translates into for us up here on the Gulf of Alaska, is a warmer than normal winter time seasonal temperatures.”

“There’s also this thing called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which is related to the sea surface temperature in the Gulf of Alaska. And for over 18 months now, we’ve been in a negative PDO, which translates into cooler than normal ocean surface temperatures in the Gulf of Alaska,” he says.

Predicting what all these patterns mean for Juneau winter is “like playing the roulette table in Las Vegas,” Fritsch says.

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Upcoming Events

Event Details

KXLL is thrilled to team up with Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council to present A Tribe Called Red.
A Tribe Called Red is a Canadian electronic

Event Details

KXLL is thrilled to team up with Sealaska Heritage Institute and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council to present A Tribe Called Red.

A Tribe Called Red is a Canadian electronic music group, who blend instrumental hip hop, reggae, moombahton and dubstep-influenced dance music with elements of First Nations music, particularly vocal chanting and drumming.
Local dance group Woosh.ji.een will open for them.

There will be separate no-alcohol and and over 21 or with parent or guardian entrances.

Location

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The KRNN Spotlight Concert Series presents a night of country music in tribute to long-time DJ Don Drew. Local musicians Andrew and Erin Heist, Riley Woodford, Annie Bartholomew, Patricia Hull

Event Details

The KRNN Spotlight Concert Series presents a night of country music in tribute to long-time DJ Don Drew. Local musicians Andrew and Erin Heist, Riley Woodford, Annie Bartholomew, Patricia Hull and more will sing tunes from Don’s real country playbook on Wednesday, November 1st at 7 pm at the Gold Town Theater.

MudroomsReal people. real stories. Live, on stage. “Mudrooms” is a community-powered monthly event in Juneau, where real people tell real stories, live. Anchorage has “Arctic Entries”. In Juneau, we’re just as sophisticated – just a little muddier. Mudrooms’ creators are Amanda Compton and Alida Bus. Audio production by Marc Wheeler.

Focus On Community“Focus on Community” is an hour long, public affairs program hosted by different volunteer, community members each week. The format ranges from in-studio discussions, to live call-ins. Topics vary from peace initiatives to mental health problems to hotly debated town issues. Any and all community members are invited to present a show idea and work with us to bring it the air.

Telling Tales with Ms. GEach week, host, Ms.G, reads a selection of writing based around a given theme. Audio of her show is available the following day here on our website.